That gray whale I wrote about a few days or a week ago has been found and rescued in San Francisco today!!
Thank you to the crabbers who found him!! And all the people up and down the coast who were on the look out for this guy!
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Thank God, literally, I was so worried.
Wonderful! Thanks for the good report Kate
I heard a radio interview with the rescuers, fantastic. They were out in the sea, saw bouys moving so followed out of curiosity, saw the whale trapped, and said for maybe 90 minutes (I don't think I'm making that up) they cut the net off with their knives while the whale stayed still for it! Then he said the whale went under the surface, came back up, circled their boat (and how unusual that was to see) and then swam off!! The fisherman was such a regular guy, had a nice kind of amazement about the wonders of the ocean and life, delightful to hear him. And me too, thrilled to hear the whale unchained, and then thanking man with that sweet circling.
Good and wonderful things still happen in this world. Warms my heart!
My daughter got all teary-eyed when I told her the story. Hurray for human
kindness.
We are so glad that the whale was at last found and freed from its burden. The saga started two Tuesdays back, when rescuers cut an anchor line to the net in which it was entangled. But before they could put a tracking device on it, the whale took off. A week later, I was driving the school van, picking up the students. When we passed Alder Creek, Keenan Harlan spotted what we thought were kayakers, about 1/4 mile out. On our return from picking up the Gorda Mountain kids, we saw it off Gorda. The CALTRANS flagger near there told us that she thought it was a whale. Closer look revealed that there were two white buoys, followed by an orange buoy. And at the head...was a spouting whale. Back at school, I called DFG and reported it. Through the day, I received many calls from NOAA/NMFS biologists, asking for info. Around noon, parent, Josh Wilson, and USFS patrolman, Duke Krenkel had spotted it at Willow Creek. I relayed their sightings and times, so now, NMFS has an extrapolated point and velocity. Duke continued to follow the whale to Lopez Point, and last sighting was at 4:30pm. We had hoped the searchers could pinpoint its estimated location the next day, by dead reckoning. We did not hear any more news...until now! And thanks to the commercial fishermen, who sighted that poor whale. This is a story with a happy ending!
The other day, out in my skiff, doing my commercial fishing off Mill Creek, a large number of whales passed, on their trek north. Each one stopped close by and stuck its head out of the water, giving me an interested eye-contact. When you look into a whale's eye, you see an intelligent mind, just as you do when you look a person in the eye. Maybe they were giving a nod of thanks to us humans.
Absolutely incredibly fine. Awash in tears at the sweetness of creatures who seem so indifferent to human kindness and simply are not.